President Donald Trump has announced that the United States is close finalising a trade agreement with India.

Speaking to reporters on Monday ahead of a dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, Trump said, “We’ve made deals with the United Kingdom and China. We’re close to making a deal with India.”

"Now, we've made a deal with the United Kingdom, we've made a deal with China. We're close to making a deal with India. Others we met with and we don't think we're going to be able to make a deal, so we just send them a letter. If you want to play ball, this is what you have to pay," Trump said.

On Monday, the Trump administration began sending formal notifications outlining new tariffs on products imported into the U.S. from a number of nations. Countries that received these letters include Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand, and Tunisia.

"We're sending out letters to various countries telling them how much tariffs they have to pay," Trump said.

He added that the countries were 'ripping' the US and were charging us tariffs at levels that nobody's ever seen before.

We have some countries that were charging 200% tariffs and making it impossible to do business.

And what the tariffs are doing is they're driving people in and companies into the United States," he said.

Trump also repeated a familiar claim that his administration helped avert a potential conflict between India and Pakistan. “We did a job with India and Pakistan, Serbia, Kosovo, Rwanda, and the Congo, all in the last three weeks. Some were on the brink of conflict,” he said.

Referring specifically to India and Pakistan, Trump said, “We told both countries that if they continued fighting, the U.S. would not engage in trade with them. They were possibly at a nuclear stage. I believe stopping that was very important.”

Trump went on to say that the US is trying to help out with the Russia-Ukraine conflict, calling it a (Joe) 'Biden-created monster'.

"This whole thing that's happening with Russia and Ukraine, horrible, it's a horrible thing. And I'm not happy with Russian President (Vladimir) Putin at all. But this is something that would have never happened if I were president. This is a war that was never going to happen," Trump said.